The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Berlin-based Charité have entered a collaboration with the aim of speeding clinical translation of new materials and tissue engineering technologies for orthopedics and connective tissue regeneration. The Wyss Institute will gain access to Charité's large animal models, patient populations for clinical trials, and GMP-level cell culture and material processing facilities.

The partnership formalizes an existing collaboration between Wyss faculty member David Mooney, Ph.D., and Georg Duda, Ph.D., vice director of Charité's Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Regenerative Therapies. Over the last two years, they have worked together on various musculoskeletal tissue engineering research projects, according to Wyss Institute. Dr. Duda has been appointed a Wyss Associate Faculty member as part of the new agreement.

The goal of Dr. Duda’s research is to understand the body’s own processes and to reproduce natural regeneration of the musculoskeletal system. Dr. Mooney’s current projects focus on therapeutic angiogenesis, regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues, and cancer therapies.

Dr. Mooney was in the news two weeks ago when his research group initiated a Phase I clinical trial of a novel implantable vaccine—which uses a small disk-like sponge about the size of a fingernail that is made from FDA-approved polymers—to treat melanoma.